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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Some good, some so-so, some meh,
By Vorthog (Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Laughter of Dark Gods (Warhammer Novels) (Mass Market Paperback)
This book reprints 11 short stories taken from 3 other anthologies previously published by Warhammer back in 1989-90.
The book starts off with a bang with the story from which this book takes its title, "The Laughter of Dark Gods" by William King. This is quite an excellent tale of one man's descent into the dark life of a Chaos warrior. I'd say that this story, along with the fantastic cover art by Clint Langley which appears to depict the story's main character, are almost worth the price of the book on their own! This is immediately followed by another strong entry which I also liked a lot, "The Reavers and the Dead" by Charles Davidson. A young man watches helplessly as a shipload of pirate reavers heads for his seaside village. Is there nothing he can do? -- You might be surprised what he does do. I liked this one so much I wished it could have continued on into a full novel, as it has the feel of only being the introductory chapter in a much larger story and seemed to end just right when it was getting really good. Next up is "The Phantom of Yremy" by Brian Craig. A mysterious thief is after the magistrate of a small Bretonnian town. Although it has a kind of vibe similar to some of Poe's mysteries, what with its pseudo-French Bretonnian setting, I still found it hard to get into and didn't really enjoy it at all. My reaction when it was over was "yeah, so what?" This is followed by "The Other" by Nicola Griffiths. A tale of two young apprentice healers, a male and a female, it seems like an excuse to go on about the advancement of women in the Warhammer world and the healing powers of women and yadda, yadda. Bleh. Next is "The Song" by Steve Baxter, a story of a halfling private eye pressed into undertaking a dangerous assignment for a sinister elf. Alright I guess, but I preferred the other halfling story later in the book. And I also felt that the tone was a bit too lighthearted for what I was hoping would be a very dark-themed anthology. I wish Warhammer would take more care when choosing the stories for their anthologies so that they really do all fit together better. "Apprentice Luck" by Sean Flynn is the tale of how one bored teenager stumbles onto the road to becoming a mage. OK I guess, but I didn't find the main character particularly likable and this affected my enjoyment of it. "The Light of Transfiguration" by Brian Craig tells the story of a nun's growing fascination with/temptation by some leftover Chaos relics. I liked this one too, quite suitably dark and my 3rd fave in the book. "The Spells Below" by Neil Jones deals with a young woman, her wizard boyfriend and his mysterious little familiar. Her boyfriend has been denounced as a follower of Chaos but she can't believe it. Can she save him? Okay story but not really necessary. "Cry of the Beast" by Ralph Castle is a werewolf tale. An elven maiden is shipwrecked and her brother is missing. Soon afterwards a beast begins attacks. Are the two connected?? Didn't particularly impress me. "A Gardener in Parravon" by Brian Craig is an unusual tale dealing with a bizarre garden, one man's obsession with it, and his strange dreams of flying creatures. I really didn't "get" this story at all and it never lived up to my expectations. This one was just filler for me. The book concludes with "The Tilean Rat" by Sandy Mitchell, which is a Warhammer-world dark ages parody of the 1940s movie "The Maltese Falcon". So if you have never seen this movie, I would advise watching it first before reading this story. Instead of Humphrey Bogart's classic detective Sam Spade, it's another halfling detective sent by an alluring elf woman to track down a statue of a rat before a fat man and his sneaky sidekick get hold of it. This was a fun story, but once again I felt it was a bit too lighthearted for what I was hoping for from this book. And isn't it a bit much putting not one but TWO halfling detective stories in one anthology? (--unless it's an anthology of halfling detective stories!) So overall there are some worthwhile stories, some just okay, and some that seem just filler. I find these Warhammer anthologies always have very uneven quality to the stories and are never really solid all the way through. And they don't seem to be consistent enough in selecting stories that all fit a particular mood. So 4 stars because I did like some of the stories, but not 5 because it could have been better.
3.0 out of 5 stars
A couple of excellent stories, the rest unremarkable,
By desertrider (USA) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Laughter of Dark Gods (Warhammer Novels) (Mass Market Paperback)
I recently became interested in the WarHammer fantasy setting, and as a fan of short stories this was a book I naturally bought as one of my first Warhammer books.
I'm not going to go through and review every story like the previous reviewer, just give some highlights and my opinions on some of the stories. The first story, Laughter of the Dark Gods, which is also the title of the book, was kind of disturbing and gruesome. I didn't enjoy reading it, and was mainly grossed out by the story's graphic imagery. The next story, The Reavers and the Dead, was much more of a classic fantasy type story about a young man who wants to be necromancer and what happens when his poor fishing village is attacked by blood thirsty pirates and the revenge he wants and opportunity he sees from this event. This was a decent story, but nothing exceptional. Now I'll skip ahead to the two best and most entertaining stories in the book that I really enjoyed, the first was The Song. This was a very funny story about a halfling detective and the trouble he gets into one night in a tavern while gambling with a sly elf, and is written in an appealing light hearted style that I found to be superb and a pleasure to read. My other favorite story just happened to be the one right after "The Song" called "Apprentice Luck". This was an awesome story that had all the ingredients of traditional fantasy, a young and bored apprentice looking for adventure, a powerful wizard, neat magic spells, and a journey through a dangerous dungeon filled with traps and monsters in a quest for treasure. A great story and this combined with the previous story that I described were the high points of the book. The rest of the stories ranged from bad to mediocre to average and all of them were unremarkable. I would recommend picking this up though based on the two outstanding stories that I mentioned.
0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
I still remember the last story 11 years later...,
By
This review is from: The Laughter of Dark Gods (Warhammer Novels) (Mass Market Paperback)
AND DAMN. It was GREAT. That's really all I remember about the book, but this is worth just that last story about a man who chooses to side with the forces of darkness. Absolutely fantastic.
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